Board # 64 : Highlighting and Examining the Importance of Authentic Industry Examples in a Workforce Development Certificate Program
- Conference
- Location
-
Columbus, Ohio
- Publication Date
-
June 24, 2017
- Start Date
-
June 24, 2017
- End Date
-
June 28, 2017
- Conference Session
- Tagged Topic
-
NSF Grantees Poster Session
- Page Count
-
11
- DOI
-
10.18260/1-2--27896
- Permanent URL
-
https://peer.asee.org/27896
- Download Count
-
444
Paper Authors
Michael Johnson
Texas A&M University
orcid.org/0000-0001-5328-8763
Dr. Michael D. Johnson is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University. Prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M, he was a senior product development engineer at the 3M Corporate Research Laboratory in St. Paul, Minnesota. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Michigan State University and his S.M. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on design tools; specifically, the cost modeling and analysis of product development and manufacturing systems; computer-aided design methodology; and engineering education.
Bimal P. Nepal Texas A&M University
Dr. Bimal Nepal is an assistant professor in the Industrial Distribution Program at Texas A&M University. His research interests include integration of supply chain management with new product development decisions, distributor service portfolio optimization, pricing optimization, supply chain risk analysis, lean and six sigma, and large scale optimization. He has authored 30 refereed articles in leading supply chain and operations management journals, and 35 peer reviewed conference proceedings articles in these areas. He has B.S. in ME, and both M.S. and Ph.D. in IE. He is a member of ASEE, INFORMS, and a senior member of IIE.
Norma Perez Houston Community College
Dr. Perez is currently the Associate Vice Chancellor of Curriculum and Learning Initiatives at Houston Community College (HCC). She has served in various positions during her thirty years of service to HCC, such as Executive Dean, Dean of Health Sciences, and Director of Institutional Assessments. Dr. Perez was instrumental in working with faculty to create the first student success course for the Health Sciences students to impact the success rate of these students. Dr. Perez also worked with faculty and industry experts to create several new programs, such as Histologic Technician, Computed Tomography, Cardiovascular Technology, Massage Therapy, and Dental Hygiene. In 2015, she worked with faculty and industry experts to create the Insurance Associate/Specialist program to train students for the insurance business. Most recently, Dr. Perez worked with the HCC Manufacturing Center of Excellence and Texas A & M University in the development of a new certificate, High Value Manufacturing, made possible through an NSF Grant initiative. This initiative also involved the manufacturing industry representatives to ensure that the certificate curriculum would meet the needs of the industry.
Abstract
The importance of authenticity has been examined in various aspects of education; this is especially true in the area of engineering education where most graduates will matriculate to industry. However, the importance of applied and authentic examples could be even more critical in workforce development programs. In these cases, students are often enrolled with a goal of using their acquired knowledge to advance their career or move into a new role. Purely theoretical or stylized examples would not be aligned with the educational goals of these students.
As part of a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education grant, a certificate program in high value manufacturing (HVM) has been developed. The certificate program is a collaboration between a research intensive four-year institution and an urban community college. In this certificate program students will be taking courses in manufacturing processes, design, and other business-related subjects that are pertinent to the manufacture of low volume components that have high materials costs, stringent quality requirements, and critical project timelines. This unique content area requires example that comprise these pertinent aspects of HVM. This is particularly true of the five newly developed courses covering materials, project management, quality, logistics, and computer-aided design. While the analogous courses at a four-year degree granting institution would likely use stylized examples in these courses, this would not be preferable in an applied certificate program.
This work discusses the acquisition and refinement of authentic and applied examples that are applicable to the HVM environment. Specifically, the use of industry contacts and the translation of examples into useable and appropriate examples are examined. These examples are detailed and compared to traditional stylized academic content. A methodology for examining student perceptions of these examples is also proposed. A discussion of the importance of authenticity in applied certificate programs is also presented
Johnson, M., & Nepal, B. P., & Perez, N. (2017, June), Board # 64 : Highlighting and Examining the Importance of Authentic Industry Examples in a Workforce Development Certificate Program Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--27896
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2017 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015